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Democrat Border Mayor Goes Ballistic over ‘Dumping’ of Illegal Aliens in His Town

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Del Rio used to be a quiet town of 40,000 residents bordering Mexico in central Texas. Even as the Rio Grande Valley to its southeast has seen constant waves of Central American migrants since 2014, Del Rio was untouched by the border crisis. Now, this part of Texas is one of the fastest-growing smuggling routes and is also the primary route of African migrants coming from countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Our federal government is so concerned about the desires of bogus asylum-seekers, and now even masses of illegal aliens who aren’t even seeking asylum, that they are failing to take into account the needs of local American communities. It’s not just right-wing cowboys upset about it. Liberal Democrat border town officials have had enough as well and are demanding federal action.

On June 8, Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano laced into staffers of Sen. John Cornyn at special meeting of local officials for not touring the city and taking a more proactive role in protecting border towns from the effects of illegal immigration.

“I asked that you go see firsthand and walk through what the Border Patrol is walking through, walk through the system of release, walk through the coalition [of nonprofits and churches], walk through the judicial process, because the senators aren’t here,” said Lozano, chewing out Jonathan Huhn, the director of Sen. Cornyn’s San Antonio office. He accused Texas’ two senators of not showing up. “They need to see firsthand what’s going on. They need to understand the frustrations that the commissioners, or that the city council, the school board, the hospital officials are managing [and] having to deal with.”

Last week, I interviewed Uvalde, Texas, Mayor Don McLaughlin, who is part of a group of south central Texas counties that have expressed the same frustration. “We’re trying to be so politically correct in everything we do now that it’s going to get somebody hurt, said McLaughlin on my podcast Friday. “We need to throw the skunk on the table and put it right out in the open where people can see. If most people knew what was happening at the border, you might see a change, a big change, in America. But our elected officials tend to want to keep it quiet. … The elected officials we have right now aint cuttin’ it.”

At the Del Rio meeting, Mayor Lozano was incredulous. “We do not have the funds to fund this project that has manifested and been dumped here in the city of Del Rio Texas, Val Verde County, and the entire border. And we’re frustrated. We’re extremely frustrated. Our priorities on the city council are our streets, are our parks, are the economy, are the drive of the community and the places of worship and the places to have leisure activities. It is not the priority to solve immigration. … I will not stand for having to be dumped and find a solution, as mayor … for immigration. It is not our purview; it is not our jurisdiction. It is your job to ensure that you convey the frustration that I share with you all to ensure that our representatives at the federal level are hearing it. It’s falling on deaf ears, and we are tired of it. We are sick and tired of the deaf ears. … It’s happening in real time.”

The meeting was attended by city council members, county commissioners, the Val Verde County judge, and school board officials. The mayor also complained that they lack interpreters who speak Portuguese and French to communicate specifically with the African migrants.

This statement is very telling because Lozano, a Democrat who has been known to wear high heels, is not exactly a right-winger. Tellingly, when he ran for mayor of the border town just a year ago, he suggested that he wanted to educate northerners that the border is not a “war zone.” That tells you just how rapidly things have changed, with Del Rio becoming a transit zone for migrants from all over the world coming and draining city transportation services as well as the town’s only hospital.

Watching this mayor’s reaction to the border crisis brings to mind similar reactions from officials in Broward and Palm Beach Counties in Florida last month, when they heard a rumor that 1,000 illegal aliens would be dumped into their counties. These are very Democrat jurisdictions, but even they had zero appetite for the strains of illegal immigrants.

With another African caravan waiting just on the other side of Del Rio in Mexico, why would Trump not care more about the blowback from local citizens for letting them in as opposed to blowback from illegal alien advocacy groups for keeping them out?

I have already established that the president has the delegated and inherent authority to deny entry to anyone, and that overrides even real asylum requests. This was established in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc. (1993) and Sesay v. Immigration and Naturalization Service INS (2003) and reiterated last year in Trump v. Hawaii. Trump can simply announce to the world that the charade is over and that anyone showing up at our land border without proper documents is inadmissible and will be turned back.

This is especially potent now because, by my calculation, close to 80 percent of family units are coming over parts of our border that are separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande River. Just like Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton kept Haitian asylum seekers off our shores in the early 1990s, Trump can do the same with those attempting to cross the Rio Grande.

Border Patrol already has maritime assets, but the president could order a “hold the line” strategy on the river by marshalling every available boat from the military and placing the National Guard, the Coast Guard, and other active-duty troops on boats all along the river. Add to them all other federal agents who can been temporarily reassigned. They should refuse to allow anyone to cross and turn back anyone caught making the trip. It’s worth creating such a force for several weeks, because after just a few weeks of turnbacks, those thinking of making the trip will change their plans. This is exactly what happened with the Nicaraguans at the Texas border in 1989.

It is utterly stupefying why the president hasn’t been doing this for the past 8-12 months and certainly for the past several months of unprecedented crisis.

With both Republicans and independents listing immigration as the top issue of concern to America, and many Democrats who are actually affected directly by the crisis now crying foul, Trump needs to realize that he will get more blowback from people who actually vote by continuing catch-and-release than by announcing a complete shutoff of illegal immigration and asylum requests at our border for the foreseeable future.

As Mayor McLaughlin of Uvalde told me, “If most people knew what was happening at the border, you might see a change.” The president has the power to inform the American people both of the scope of the problem and his inherent authority to solve it. Current law and current executive authority over border entry are your friends, Mr. President. (For more from the author of “Democrat Border Mayor Goes Ballistic over ‘Dumping’ of Illegal Aliens in His Town” please click HERE)

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Team Led by Middle Eastern Woman Caught Surveilling U.S. Facility on Mexican Border

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A Middle Eastern woman was caught surveilling a U.S. port of entry on the Mexican border holding a sketchbook with Arabic writing and drawings of the facility and its security system, federal law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch.

The woman has been identified as 23-year-old Leila Abdelrazaq, according to a Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) report obtained by JW this week. Abdelrazaq appeared to have two accomplices, a 31-year-old man named Gabriel Schivone and a 28-year-old woman named Leslie Mcafee. CBP agents noticed the trio “observing the facilities” at the Port of Mariposa in Nogales, Arizona on December 2. Schivone was first noticed inside the entrance of the pedestrian area while the two women stood outside by the entry door, the CPB document states.

When federal officers asked Abdelrazaq why she was drawing sketches of the facilities she “stated because she’s never been to the border,” according to the CBP report. Abdelrazaq resisted showing officers the sketchbook, citing personal reasons, but subsequently handed it over. “During the inspection of the Abdelrazaq sketching book, CBPOs noticed the book contained writings in English and Arabic language,” federal officers write in the document. “There were drawings of what appeared to be vehicle primary inspection area and an additional drawing of pedestrian turn stile gate depicting video surveillance cameras above the gate.” The report proceeds to reveal that the drawings were “partial and incomplete.”

This distressing information comes on the heels of two separate—and equally alarming—incidents in the same vicinity. A few weeks ago JW reported that five young Middle Eastern men were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in Amado, an Arizona town situated about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Two of the men were carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, alarming Border Patrol officials enough to call the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for backup. DHS officially denies this ever occurred, but law enforcement and other sources have confirmed to JW that the two men carrying the cylinders were believed to be taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). (Read more from “Team Led by Middle Eastern Woman Caught Surveilling U.S. Facility on Mexican Border” HERE)

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U.S. Pushes Back Against Warnings That ISIS Plans to Enter From Mexico

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Photo Credit: ERIC GAY / APBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT.

Militants for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have traveled to Mexico and are just miles from the United States. They plan to cross over the porous border and will “imminently” launch car bomb attacks. And the threat is so real that federal law enforcement officers have been placed at a heightened state of alert, and an American military base near the border has increased its security.

As the Obama administration and the American public have focused their attention on ISIS in recent weeks, conservative groups and leading Republicans have issued stark warnings like those that ISIS and other extremists from Syria are planning to enter the country illegally from Mexico. But the Homeland Security Department, the F.B.I. and lawmakers who represent areas near the border say there is no truth to the warnings.

“There is no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an active plot by ISIL to attempt to cross the southern border,” Homeland Security officials said in a written statement, using an alternative acronym for the group.

Read more from this story HERE.

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The Great Unraveling

By Roger Cohen.

It was the time of unraveling. Long afterward, in the ruins, people asked: How could it happen?

It was a time of beheadings. With a left-handed sawing motion, against a desert backdrop, in bright sunlight, a Muslim with a British accent cut off the heads of two American journalists and a British aid worker. The jihadi seemed comfortable in his work, unhurried. His victims were broken. Terror is theater. Burning skyscrapers, severed heads: The terrorist takes movie images of unbearable lightness and gives them weight enough to embed themselves in the psyche.

It was a time of aggression. The leader of the largest nation on earth pronounced his country encircled, even humiliated. He annexed part of a neighboring country, the first such act in Europe since 1945, and stirred up a war on further land he coveted. His surrogates shot down a civilian passenger plane. The victims, many of them Europeans, were left to rot in the sun for days. He denied any part in the violence, like a puppeteer denying that his puppets’ movements have any connection to his. He invoked the law the better to trample on it. He invoked history the better to turn it into farce. He reminded humankind that the idiom fascism knows best is untruth so grotesque it begets unreason.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexico Sorry for Border Crossing, But US Marine's Apology Not Enough

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Photo Credit: Fox News Mexican military officials are apologizing for firing from a chopper at two U.S. Border Patrol agents early Thursday, but one lawmaker says the incident draws a disturbing contrast with the case of Andrew Tahmooressi, the U.S. Marine sergeant whose apology for accidentally crossing the border hasn’t spared him a legal nightmare.

Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation, which straddles the border, when they strayed into U.S. air space and fired at the agents, who were not injured. The reservation is a hotbed for drug smuggling, and authorities from both governments have conducted operations on it.

“Early [Thursday] morning, a Mexican law enforcement helicopter crossed approximately 100 yards north into Arizona nearly eight miles southwest of the Village of San Miguel on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation while on a drug interdiction operation near the border,” U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Michael Friel said. “Two shots were fired from the helicopter but no injuries or damage to U.S. property were reported. The incident is currently under investigation.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexican Military Chopper Crosses Into US, Shoots At Border Agents

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Photo Credit: MARK RALSTON / AFP / Getty ImagesBorder Patrol agents in Arizona were reportedly fired upon by a Mexican military helicopter that traveled across the border.

Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation when the incident happened early Thursday morning on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. The Mexican chopper fired at the agents and then flew back into Mexico.

However, Mexican authorities have denied shooting at agents and say they were under attack during a mission to find smugglers on the border.

Tomás Zerón, the director of the Mexican attorney general’s office investigative office, said that Mexican military and federal police who were conducting an operation on a ranch in Altar, Sonora, were shot at by criminals. Mexican authorities never fired any weapons and in fact never crossed into the U.S. side of the border, he said.

Art Del Cueto, Border Patrol Tucson Sector union president, tells KVOA-TV, though, that they called and apologized for the incident.

Read more from this story HERE.

Soaring Number Of Cubans Are Entering The United States Through Mexican Border

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Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGESThe easing by the Cuban government of restrictions on traveling abroad has led to a rise in the number of Cubans who try to enter the United States through the Mexican border, the Miami Herald reports.

Undocumented Cubans stopped at the U.S.-Mexican border totaled 2,300 from January through August, more than double the 994 in the same time frame last year, the newspaper says, citing Mexican government figures.

Authorities estimate that roughly 13,000 got to the border undetected between Sept. 2012 and Sept. 2013, the Herald says.

The theory for the rise is that Cubans who make it to the U.S. border benefit from this nation’s “wet-foot-dry-foot” policy, which holds that any Cuban national who puts foot on U.S. soil may stay in the country. Those who are stopped at sea often are repatriated.

Meanwhile, Cuban officials say travel abroad has risen 35 percent since the island’s government loosened restrictions this year.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexican Immigrant Busted at Border after Getting Tangled in Razor Wire

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Photo Credit: mopsografieA suspected illegal immigrant was rescued Tuesday by San Diego firefighters after becoming ensnared in the razor wire on top of a fence at the U.S.-Mexico border, Fox5SanDiego.com reported.

Border Patrol agents saw the man stuck in the fence east of Otay Mesa just before 3:45 p.m., and they called the San Diego Fire Department, the report said. It took rescuers more than an hour to free the man stuck some 20 feet above the ground. The undocumented man was evaluated by EMTs at the scene and was not injured. He was handed over to border agents and taken into custody, the report said.

The concertina wire on top of the fence is two rows deep and designed to make moving forward or backward excruciatingly painful.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Rep Watches 60 Children Leave AZ School and Cross Border to Return to Their Mexican Homes

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Photo Credit: Rick Bowmer

During a tour of the Arizona-Mexico border Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz dispatched a series of tweets and pictures Wednesday highlighting lax security at the border.

According to Chaffetz, the “worst thing” he saw was young children leaving school and crossing the border back into Mexico to return home.

“Worst thing I’ve seen. 60 elementary age kids leave this school in Naco, AZ,” Chaffetz tweeted:

Worst thing I’ve seen. 60 elementary age kids leave this school in Naco, AZ twitter.com/jasoninthehous…
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) April 3, 2013

Then, unaccompanied, they cross the border to “home” in Mexico. No papers checked. Supervisor said it happens daily twitter.com/jasoninthehous…
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) April 3, 2013

Read more from this story HERE.

Schumer: Legalizing Illegal Immigrants Won’t Be Stopped by Border Security Needs (+video)

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Photo Credit: EVAN BAYHNew York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said securing the nation’s borders should not be used as “a barrier” to giving illegal immigrants living in the U.S. a pathway to citizenship.

“We want the border to be secure. It’s more secure than it was several years ago, but it has a ways to go. And different sectors need different types of security. It’s a lot different having security in the Tucson sector than off the stretch in Texas, which is bounded by the Rio Grande,” Schumer said on Thursday.

“But we’re not using border security as an excuse or block to the path of citizenship. We just want to make sure — and this is very important both substantively and politically — that there is a secure border, and we’re going to work for that. But it’s not — and Dick [Durbin] and I and Bob [Menendez], as well as our three Republican friends, want to make sure the border’s secure but not to use it as a barrier to prevent the 11 million from eventually gaining a path to citizenship.”

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who joined a bipartisan group to announce an immigration reform blueprint earlier this week, argues that increased border security should come before a pathway to citizenship.

“The only way that I know to incentivize the enforcement part is to say that the green card stuff doesn’t even begin to happen until the enforcement happens first,” said Rubio.

Read more on this story HERE.

Iran’s Hezbollah on U.S. Doorstep

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Photo credit: upyernoz

With America’s attention turned to elections, there have been some pretty creepy dealings in the hemisphere that haven’t gotten much note. Iran, which is trying to develop an illegal nuclear weapon and is openly threatening Israel, is not only laughing off any tough talk from the Obama administration, it also made it clear that it means to take any prospect of war from the U.S. to our door to deter it. That’s right, to our door, using Latin America, with Hezb’allah terrorists.

It’s happening fast.

Doing as the Soviets did in the 1980s, Iran’s been creating alliances with America’s enemies and setting up networks of Hezb’allah operatives in places along critical smuggling routes – such as Nicaragua. Last week, Israeli Radio reported a new Hezb’allah base for 30 terrorists in the country, financed by Iran. Any ideas what those bases are really there for?

Not only is Iran bringing its act to our hemisphere, it has advantages the Soviets never did: a wealthy reliable ally in Venezuela’s anti-American Hugo Chavez – who has allowed his country to become a narcotrafficking state and has given Hezb’allah another base of operations, as well as links to Mexico’s drug cartels, whose tentacles extend deep into the U.S. through our unguarded border aided by the Obama administration’s refusal to enforce immigration laws. Cartels are present in 1800 U.S. towns and cities, according to U.S. lawmen and Hezb’allah has made connection with the cartels. Today’s news shows that three Hezb’allah operatives were arrested in Merida, Mexico – a first, because Mexican authorities have long denied the presence of terrorists in their country.

Read more from this story HERE.